Mexico or Eastern Caribbean cruise? best for diving?

[Life-Is-Good-Diver]

Hi, were planning our first cruise here leaving out of Florida, and im trying to plan a cruise with the best diving spot's, and most port stop's.

Were planning a 7 day cruise, somtime this May, and i can't descide between Mexico, and they usalley stop at Grand Caymen,etc, or a Eastern Caribbean cruise.

I found Royal Carribean's ( Marnier of the Sea's ) that leaves out of Port Carnvial ) right next to my home, and does both one week a Mexico , and one week a Eastern Caribbean.

What have you found to be the best dive spot's between the two location's?

Myself and my wife are both diver's, and this is our first cruise, so were trying to go with a Newer boat (2003 ) and up, any suggestion's?

Also, i was going to bring my own dive gear, B/C , reg's, wetsuit's, etc, it can all fit in one case , think it would be ok to bring my own gear and just rent the tanks when we dive?


Any sugestions would be great, were looking for any cruise the first week of May., the second week the latest, anyone else wanna join?

 

[Sam308]

I was last year on the Mariner of the Seas. For diving, I recommend the Western Caribbean as the stops are Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel and I dove all three. Although, Jamaica was O.K., Grand Cayman and Cozumel were fantastic!

The Mariner is a newer ship and great, RC does a good job. I brought my gear, with the exception of tanks and weight and it worked out well. I also had a balcony room and this was nice for drying gear between ports.

If you were planning on booking with the ships excursion, book well in advance since Grand Cayman and Cozumel were sold out before the ship left Port Canaveral.

I wish I could go with you as I really enjoyed the cruise. I will say, the other divers I met on the ship were a pleasure to dive with. I recommend you have a dive computer. In Grand Cayman, our first dive was to 90 feet and lasted around 50 minutes. Another diver asked me our maximun dept as he was diving with the dive graphs and he was shocked to find we were off the charts.

Sam